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Speaker 1: We originally released our interview with Doug de Losan November

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Speaker 1: twenty eight, twenty sixteen. It was our eighth episode that

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Speaker 1: we ever recorded, and Doug and I go back even

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Speaker 1: further than that. So running into him at the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty three Instance Network conference was like seeing an old friend.

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Speaker 1: So we caught up on everything he's been up to

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Speaker 1: his organization, the first seventy two plus, which aids people

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Speaker 1: in re entry to society coming out of prison. We'll

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Speaker 1: have that linked in the bio, but mostly we talked

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Speaker 1: about the people who do the time with the wrongfully convicted,

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Speaker 1: their loved ones. Doug, it's been a long time since

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Speaker 1: you came home after fourteen years of a life sentence.

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Speaker 2: What's going on now? Update everybody?

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm now in my twenty third year of freedom

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Speaker 3: and I'm happily married. I don't know if I was

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Speaker 3: married when we did the other episode. My children are

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Speaker 3: even older now. My daughter, who will be forty two.

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Speaker 2: This h year.

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Speaker 3: She managed to graduate from college with honors, has a

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Speaker 3: degree in finance. She's been working as an accountant for

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Speaker 3: the same company seventeen eighteen years.

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Speaker 4: Now.

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Speaker 3: She's a single mom. She has my grandson who's getting

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Speaker 3: ready to turn seventeen and she owns her own home.

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Speaker 3: My son has married, he is living in Sacramento, California,

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Speaker 3: and he's expecting twins, which I couldn't be more delighted

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Speaker 3: to become a grandfather again.

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Speaker 1: That's great, and it's great to hear about the new

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Speaker 1: family members coming your way. But I have to ask

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Speaker 1: you this, Doug So, you talked about on the podcast

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Speaker 1: when we recorded it back in I think it was

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Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, about how when you were almost at the

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Speaker 1: fourteenth year of your life sentence without parole, you had

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Speaker 1: felt like you had become such a burden to your

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Speaker 1: kids coming to visit you week in and week out,

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Speaker 1: instead of doing the things that you hoped that they

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Speaker 1: would be doing and that kids wont to be doing.

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Speaker 1: Let's face it, now, your kids enduring the loss of

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Speaker 1: their mother who was murdered, the ronful imprisonment of their father,

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Speaker 1: and yet it seems like they have led good lives

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Speaker 1: and seem to be doing good things in the world.

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Speaker 2: How do you explain the fact that those kids could

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Speaker 2: go through this.

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Speaker 1: Double trauma and still, you know, flourish in the world.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think they deserve all the credit for where

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Speaker 3: they are in life today. My daughter, I couldn't be

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Speaker 3: more proud of her because she's overcome so many obstacles

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Speaker 3: in her life. But she says all the time, biggest

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Speaker 3: thing in her life is she wished she would have

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Speaker 3: had a childhood. But she's doing fantastic today. She could

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Speaker 3: be happier, but you know again, I think she's done

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Speaker 3: a fantastic job of helping raise herself and reaching where

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Speaker 3: she has in life. As far as my son, who

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Speaker 3: will turn forty five this year, my son has experienced

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Speaker 3: a number of problems. I hate to say it, but

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Speaker 3: there's no sense in trying to hide it. He had

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Speaker 3: a terrible problem with drugs and alcohol, and he had

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Speaker 3: spiraled so far out of control in his late teens

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Speaker 3: and early twenties that I didn't know if I'd get

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Speaker 3: a phone call any given night given me bad news

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Speaker 3: regarding him. But somehow, when he reached about thirty years old,

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Speaker 3: he woke up, looked at himself in the mirror and said,

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Speaker 3: I'm not going to do it anymore. And he still

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Speaker 3: has an occasional drink. I don't think he has a

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Speaker 3: drinking problem. He doesn't do drugs. He's happily married. His

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Speaker 3: wife's a doctor, moved to California, and they have twins

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Speaker 3: on the way. And I guess the biggest thing I

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Speaker 3: wonder is given all the credit to my son and

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Speaker 3: daughter for managing to succeed in life. Where would they

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Speaker 3: be today if the police hadn't framed me, the DA

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Speaker 3: hadn't framed me, and they had grown up with a

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Speaker 3: loving father and had some direction in life. Because they

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Speaker 3: had none, they did it all on their own.

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Speaker 1: And now Doug's story our eighth episode ever and one

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Speaker 1: of the most powerful ones I have to say I've

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Speaker 1: ever heard here.

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Speaker 2: It is as it originally aired.

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Speaker 4: I came from a beautiful neighborhood, had a beautiful life.

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Speaker 5: I went to sleep because September seventh was the first

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Speaker 5: day of my high school year. I was going to

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Speaker 5: be a senior at twenty two, I was set to

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Speaker 5: start college. I woke up and my life was never

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Speaker 5: the same again.

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Speaker 3: Cops came out with guns drawn, and I never saw

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Speaker 3: freedom ever since after that.

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Speaker 5: It's like groach mode ta once you get in and

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Speaker 5: I can't now.

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Speaker 2: This is wrong for conviction with Jason.

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Speaker 1: Klom particularly thrilled today to have as our guest, my

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Speaker 1: good friend Doug Delosa.

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Speaker 2: Doug, welcome to the show.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, Jason.

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Speaker 1: Having worked with the Nisis Project now for twenty years

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Speaker 1: in my role as a founding board member, I thought

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Speaker 1: I had heard everything until I heard Doug's story. So

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Speaker 1: you were living in Louisiana, right.

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Speaker 3: I grew up there. I was born and raised in

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Speaker 3: New Orleans, Louisiana. At the time, I wasn't living in

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Speaker 3: New Orleans proper, but I was living just outside of

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Speaker 3: New Orleans in the city of Cana. I was married.

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Speaker 3: My wife and I had been together a little over

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Speaker 3: ten years. We had two beautiful children and a son

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Speaker 3: who was seven at the time and a daughter who

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Speaker 3: was five.

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Speaker 1: Right, So you had a little yard and basically some

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Speaker 1: neighbors and sort of like they we think of in

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Speaker 1: New York. We think everything's a culled the sack. Right,

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Speaker 1: we have this strange region know America as a series

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Speaker 1: of called the sack. But basically, am I painting the

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Speaker 1: right picture?

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Speaker 5: Yes?

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Speaker 2: Until it all went wrong?

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, until that American dream turned into the American nightmare?

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Speaker 1: Right, And it's a nightmare of proportions that are impossible

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Speaker 1: to overstate. You were at home with your wife and kids. Right,

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Speaker 1: and tell us what happened.

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Speaker 3: It was a typical Friday evening in our lives. Fast

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Speaker 3: forward to about two thirty in the morning on Saturday morning,

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Speaker 3: September twenty seventh, and I woke up, sat up in bed.

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Speaker 3: I heard a noise. The noise that I was positive

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Speaker 3: I heard was our pet parrot squawking and fluttering around

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Speaker 3: in its cage. I get up from bed, Tell my wife,

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Speaker 3: I'm going to check on Andy. That was the name

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Speaker 3: of the bird.

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Speaker 2: And what was your wife's name.

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Speaker 3: My wife's name was Glinda. Right, I get up, I

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Speaker 3: go downstairs. As soon as I got to the foot

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Speaker 3: of the stairs, one person came from the side of

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Speaker 3: me out of our bathroom area, and this person immediately

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Speaker 3: struck me with an object that I think was a

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Speaker 3: piece of mob pandle or a broomstick. Another person came

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Speaker 3: from the kitchen area and immediately knocked me to the ground.

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Speaker 3: And the two individuals, I don't know how long it lasted,

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Speaker 3: probably less than thirty seconds, kicked me, beat me until

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Speaker 3: I lost consciousness. Sometime later I was regaining consciousness. I'm

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Speaker 3: not sure how long I laid on the floor. But

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Speaker 3: I realized thing that sort of frightened me. At first,

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Speaker 3: I couldn't move my fans and feet were tied behind

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Speaker 3: my back. I was hog tied, and I was struggling

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Speaker 3: to gain consciousness and put my thought process together to

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Speaker 3: figure out what had happened. And after whether it was

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Speaker 3: one minute or ten minutes, I started calling for my wife.

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Speaker 3: Didn't get any response at all.

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Speaker 2: So you're at the foot of the stairs, at the.

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Speaker 3: Foot of the stairs, inside of what would have been

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Speaker 3: our den.

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Speaker 2: Right, and she's and she's upstairs. She's ups upstairs.

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Speaker 3: In the bedroom. Getting no response at all from my wife.

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Speaker 3: I called for my seven year old son, Dennis, and

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Speaker 3: on the third of the fourth call from my son,

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Speaker 3: I heard him stirring upstairs. He answered me. Initially, he

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Speaker 3: went into the master bedroom and I could hear him say, Daddy,

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Speaker 3: where are you? I see mommy, but she's sleeping, and

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Speaker 3: I said, Daddy's downstairs, Please come downstairs. He came downstairs

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Speaker 3: and I told him, Dennis, two bad men had broken

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Speaker 3: in the house and they hurt Daddy. But I'm gonna

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Speaker 3: be all right. I need you to untie my hands.

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Speaker 3: He couldn't untie my hands. Because the rope was tied

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Speaker 3: so tightly. Then I asked him to go in the kitchen,

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Speaker 3: please get a knife and try to cut the rope.

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Speaker 3: He came back with a knife, but he was panicking

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Speaker 3: because he said, Daddy, I'm scared because I can see

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Speaker 3: four legs under the blind or the curtain in the

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Speaker 3: kitchen leading out to the patio. I can see people

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Speaker 3: standing on the patio, and I'm afraid it's the bad

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Speaker 3: men that hurt you. And I sort of panicked myself then,

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Speaker 3: and I said, Dennis, pick up the phone. The phone

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Speaker 3: was right there on the landing of the stairs. I said,

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Speaker 3: dial nine one one, and he immediately picked up the phone,

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Speaker 3: dial nine one one. He says, what do I say?

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Speaker 3: And I said, just tell him you need help, that

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Speaker 3: your daddy's hurt. And you had seen two men standing

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Speaker 3: on the patio. I don't think he told them that

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Speaker 3: exact anyway, he got their attention, and within minutes police

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Speaker 3: arrived on the scene.

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Speaker 1: And then the police arrive on the scene, and then

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Speaker 1: this is where things start to really get crazy, right,

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Speaker 1: because it seems like a pretty simple situation.

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Speaker 2: You're hog tied, right.

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Speaker 3: The police enter. The first thing, one of them does

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Speaker 3: is kneel down next to me, ask me if I'm

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Speaker 3: all right. I guess I basically tell him, yeah, I'm fine.

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Speaker 3: He doesn't untime, he doesn't do anything, and I hear

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Speaker 3: another officer goes upstairs, and at that point in time,

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Speaker 3: the next thing I hear him is kicking the door

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Speaker 3: off the hinges. And it turned out that after my

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Speaker 3: son had gone in the bedroom when I called him

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Speaker 3: and he found his mother what he described as being asleep,

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Speaker 3: he must have pulled the door shut behind him and

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Speaker 3: it just automatically locked.

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Speaker 2: So he kicks in the door.

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Speaker 3: He kicks in the door. When he kicks in the door,

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Speaker 3: he really startles my daughter, who's in the bedroom next door,

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Speaker 3: and she starts crying hysterically. And at that point then

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Speaker 3: my son starts crying hysterically. And I'm getting pretty hysterical myself.

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Speaker 3: Laying on the floor. I'm still hog tied, and I'm

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Speaker 3: telling you what's going on, what's going on, And policemen

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Speaker 3: is trying to restrain me and keep me on the ground.

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Speaker 2: Which is not that hard.

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Speaker 3: You're but go ahead, and I'm like, and he says,

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Speaker 3: don't worry, Everything'll be fine, And I mean within moments,

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Speaker 3: it seems like ambulance attendants arrived on the scene. I

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Speaker 3: couldn't hear exactly what they were being told, but they

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Speaker 3: were being told something about my wife was in the

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Speaker 3: bedroom upstairs, and that somebody needed to get my daughter

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Speaker 3: and bring a downstairs, which they did. And again I

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Speaker 3: don't know how much time was elapsing, but at some

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Speaker 3: point in time, more police officers arrived on the scene.

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Speaker 3: Eventually someone cut me free. Moments after they cut me free,

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Speaker 3: they told me that that I would have to be

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Speaker 3: taken to the emergency room, and that the other paramedic

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Speaker 3: team was working on my wife and I'd see her there.

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Speaker 3: And also at some point in time they asked me

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Speaker 3: if there was anybody that they could call to take

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Speaker 3: care of my children. I'm being treated in the emergency room.

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Speaker 3: I don't know how much later again, was it ten

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Speaker 3: or fifteen minutes? Was it an hour later? My brother

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Speaker 3: and a priest come into the emergency room, and they

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Speaker 3: informed me that my wife had been killed.

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Speaker 1: And at this point, you're I mean, you've just been

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Speaker 1: through an impossibly traumatic experience and now you're getting hit

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Speaker 1: with this news and the whole world must be collapsing

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Speaker 1: around you.

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Speaker 3: At this point in time, it was pretty hard to

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Speaker 3: believe what I was being told. I think I almost

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Speaker 3: went in the shock when they told me my wife

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Speaker 3: had been killed, And I mean, I just can't process

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Speaker 3: what I'm being told and come up with any logical

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Speaker 3: reason why it had happened.

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Speaker 1: And then you get back with your kids and try

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Speaker 1: to piece things back together. You had given the police

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Speaker 1: the information that they wanted right about it, basically the story.

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Speaker 2: That you just told us.

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Speaker 3: I had recalled everything I could remember to the police.

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Speaker 1: Except for when you were unconscious, of course, which was

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Speaker 1: that's the only missing part. And then they were having

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Speaker 1: trouble solving the case.

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Speaker 3: Right There had been considerable criticism of the police department

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Speaker 3: for not solving having any viable leads in this case,

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Speaker 3: demanding to know from the police chief what were they doing,

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Speaker 3: how were they protecting the neighborhood. I had gotten a

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Speaker 3: little bit vocal, and I probably said on more than

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Speaker 3: one occasion, all of these stupid son of a bitches

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Speaker 3: need to be fired because they don't appear to know

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Speaker 3: what they're doing. Their actions were, in my mind, reminiscent

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Speaker 3: of the old Keystone cops in slapstick comedies because they

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Speaker 3: just didn't appear to be very.

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Speaker 1: Bright, right, Okay, And so obviously the police, you know,

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Speaker 1: they're feeling a lot of pressure and they're feeling a

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Speaker 1: little they're getting their back up about this, right, right.

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Speaker 1: So then comes the craziest part, in some ways the

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Speaker 1: craziest part of the story, right, which is that now

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Speaker 1: we're three months from the day to the crime basically.

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Speaker 3: Right, we're now the morning of December twenty ninth.

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Speaker 2: I was it's hot, it's hot in.

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Speaker 3: It's very warm in Louisiana. I'm deciding I'm going to

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Speaker 3: put out the Christmas tree. It's starting. It was a

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Speaker 3: live tree. It's starting to drop needles all over. So

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Speaker 3: I tell my children, I'll be right back. I'm just

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Speaker 3: going to put the Christmas tree out for the trash.

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Speaker 3: I've got a pair of cutoff jeans on, nothing else.

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Speaker 3: And as I'm putting the tree in the back of

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Speaker 3: my house by the curve for the trash, I hear

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Speaker 3: Doug Delosa turn around, and I sort of turn around

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Speaker 3: and I'm like almost in shock. I have no idea

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Speaker 3: how many police officers are there, at minimum of six,

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Speaker 3: maybe ten or more. I have many. No idea how

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Speaker 3: many news cameras are there. Probably as many personnel were

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Speaker 3: there as there were police officers pointing cameras at me,

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Speaker 3: and the police pointing guns at me, and they say,

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Speaker 3: you know why we're here. We're here to rest you

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Speaker 3: for the murder or your wife. And I'm just like

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Speaker 3: thinking to myself, this can't be true. This nightmare just

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Speaker 3: keeps getting worse and worse. I knew that I had

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Speaker 3: been labeled to suspect, but I never, in my wildest imagination,

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Speaker 3: thought that it would evolve into an arrest. I'm not

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Speaker 3: dressed except for with a pair of cutoffs on. My

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Speaker 3: children are in their pajamas, and I asked the one detective,

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Speaker 3: could I please go dress my children and call somebody

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Speaker 3: to take them well. As I was changing their clothes,

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Speaker 3: I turned to this man who couldn't have been more

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Speaker 3: than two to three feet away from me, standing right

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Speaker 3: in my face, and I asked him. I said, detective Dote,

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Speaker 3: why are you doing this to me? Why are you

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Speaker 3: doing this to my children? You know that I didn't

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Speaker 3: kill my wife, and this police officer, when I asked

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Speaker 3: him that question, he had the look of a wild

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Speaker 3: man on his face, and he almost I don't know

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Speaker 3: how to describe it. His voice was almost venomous, and

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Speaker 3: he says, man, fuck you, fuck your children, and fuck

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Speaker 3: that dead wife of yours. I didn't ask that stupid

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Speaker 3: bitch to die in my city. And he goes on

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Speaker 3: to say, he says, why should I give a fuck

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Speaker 3: about you or your children? Do you care about me

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Speaker 3: and my children? My job's on the line, and he said,

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Speaker 3: you have asked that I be terminated in competence. Well,

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Speaker 3: you know what, I don't know who did it. Maybe

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Speaker 3: I know you didn't do it, but I can build

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Speaker 3: the case against you. So you're it.

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Speaker 1: So you're you know, you go to trial, and well

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Speaker 1: they withheld several critical pieces of evidence from the defense,

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Speaker 1: that which is called a Brady violation, which which would

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Speaker 1: have excluded you and would have led to you being

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Speaker 1: found innocent. Do you want to talk about the trial?

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Speaker 3: From start to finish, nine days had passed, and from

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Speaker 3: the very beginning, the two district attorneys prosecuting me told

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Speaker 3: the jury that they were never going to hear any

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Speaker 3: direct evidence that tied me to this crime. That basically

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Speaker 3: what they were trying to convict me on was a

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Speaker 3: theory of how I did it and why I did it,

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Speaker 3: and what was going to be important to the jury

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Speaker 3: to find me guilty was that I had no evidence

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Speaker 3: to support my story that two black men broke into

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Speaker 3: my house that night, beat me unconscious, hog tied me,

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Speaker 3: and at some point in time killed my wife.

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Speaker 1: Right now, But the reason we know that you couldn't

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Speaker 1: provide any proof is because they were withholding the proof

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Speaker 1: that they had. They had the investigators. You didn't have investigators.

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Speaker 1: They had all the guys sweeping the and doing the

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Speaker 1: whole thing exactly.

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Speaker 3: There were fingerprints found in several places throughout the house

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Speaker 3: that didn't belong to me, any of my family members,

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Speaker 3: any of our friends, anyone any member of the investigative

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Speaker 3: team that had all been ruled out, and these fingerprints

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Speaker 3: found throughout the house belonged to someone. But we have

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Speaker 3: no idea who they belonged to.

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Speaker 2: But they didn't tell you that.

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Speaker 3: No, their fingerprint expert committed perjury on the stand when

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Speaker 3: he said absolutely no other fingerprints were found in the house.

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Speaker 1: Can we talk about the cab driver for a second,

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Speaker 1: because that's one to me, that's one that's always stuck

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Speaker 1: in my mind.

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Speaker 2: That's really you know.

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Speaker 3: Sometime after I was arrested, well, actually, let's back up

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Speaker 3: to right after my wife's funeral, three days after the murder,

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Speaker 3: a taxi driver came forward to the can of Police

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00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:04,080
Speaker 3: department and he said, I think I may have some

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Speaker 3: testimony that would help you catch the people who killed

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Speaker 3: this lady, meaning my wife. And as the story goes

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Speaker 3: in his written deposition to the police, he was dropping

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Speaker 3: off affair in that neighborhood, which at that time was

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Speaker 3: exclusively white. There would have been no reason whatsoever to

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Speaker 3: have seen blacks in that particular neighborhood.

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Speaker 2: At least aboot three in the morning.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, least of all at three to four o'clock in

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Speaker 3: the morning. And he goes on to give in his

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Speaker 3: written deposition that as he was driving down this one street,

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Speaker 3: he saw two black men leaving the vicinity of the

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Speaker 3: front of my house carrying what would have fit the

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Speaker 3: description of some of the items I told police were

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Speaker 3: taken from my house. And he says that as his

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Speaker 3: lights shone on the two men, it appeared that they panicked.

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Speaker 3: They ran to a silver van that was waiting, and

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Speaker 3: they sped off in a reckless manner and he found

355
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Speaker 3: that very unusual and thought it was important to bring

356
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Speaker 3: that testimony to the police, which he did.

357
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Speaker 2: As it was, but they, of course withheld that from.

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Speaker 3: The defense illegally. They withheld that and said that there

359
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:34,640
Speaker 3: was nobody had ever seen anything regarding any black men

360
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Speaker 3: in that neighborhood, much less in the vicinity of my home.

361
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Speaker 3: Now fast forward another six to seven months, I'm at

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Speaker 3: trial this you know, good citizen is reading in the

363
00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:51,159
Speaker 3: newspaper and hearing on the TV that I'm undergoing a

364
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Speaker 3: trial for the murder of my wife. Well, he just

365
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Speaker 3: doesn't understand, and at this point he doesn't trust the

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Speaker 3: police because he's already gone to the police twice. So

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Speaker 3: he shows up at the courthouse somehow manages to talk

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Speaker 3: to one of the two or maybe perhaps both, of

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Speaker 3: the district attorneys who were trying the case, and he

370
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 3: tells his story to them, and they very nonchalantly brush

371
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Speaker 3: him off and said, oh, don't worry. We presented your

372
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Speaker 3: written statement to mister Dolosa's attorney. He reviewed it, but

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Speaker 3: in light of the overwhelming evidence against him, he knows

374
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Speaker 3: that your testimony wouldn't do any good, so he decided

375
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Speaker 3: not to call you as a witness, which was a

376
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Speaker 3: total lie. They hadn't given any of that information to

377
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Speaker 3: my attorney. And one of the biggest parts of their

378
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:48,439
Speaker 3: case was over and over again they repeated to the jury,

379
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Speaker 3: no one repeat, no one saw anything suspicious in that

380
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Speaker 3: neighborhood that night, much less two black men. And that's

381
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Speaker 3: why you must find mister Dolosa guilty because he was lying.

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Speaker 1: The jury comes back, they find you guilty and sends

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Speaker 1: you to life in prison. Now, the only thing that

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00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: can make it worse is they're going to send you

385
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Speaker 1: to what is arguably the worst prison in America, in Louisiana,

386
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Speaker 1: which is the state which has the highest prison population

387
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Speaker 1: by far. Louisiana does have three times higher rate of

388
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Speaker 1: incarceration than the rest of the country per capita, and

389
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Speaker 1: of course America has a five times higher rate than

390
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Speaker 1: the rest of the world. So it's off the chain.

391
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Speaker 1: But now you're being sent to Angola prison farm, and

392
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Speaker 1: let's talk about that.

393
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Speaker 3: Well. Arriving at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, which they call Angola,

394
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Speaker 3: it was beyond culture shock. I didn't know what to expect.

395
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Speaker 3: I'd heard numerous rumors that scared the hell out of me.

396
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 3: But I arrived at Angola and one of the first

397
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 3: things that I guess was really strange was they put

398
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:17,399
Speaker 3: you in an initial classification to decide where you're going

399
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 3: to be housed. And I'm going before these classification officers

400
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 3: and they decide that they're going to put me in

401
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:30,640
Speaker 3: a working cell block for my protection rather than general population.

402
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:34,359
Speaker 3: And then they make a statement that's pretty odd. They

403
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 3: said that they don't have a white cell available to

404
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:41,679
Speaker 3: put me in, so I'd have to be sent to

405
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 3: a security cell while they prepare a white cell. And

406
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 3: I'm like, what the hell is a white cell. At

407
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:54,919
Speaker 3: that time, they still believed in segregating the white and

408
00:25:54,960 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 3: black prisoners at Angola. They didn't mix and blacks in

409
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:07,360
Speaker 3: the same cell. But my very first night in Angola,

410
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 3: I'm in a disciplinary tier and I'm in a cell

411
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 3: and there's someone down the tier in another cell acting up,

412
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 3: and at some point in time he throws human waste

413
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Speaker 3: on a security guard, and I'm just like, scared shitless.

414
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going on. Their guards would appear

415
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 3: to be swat uniforms and riot shields and everything. Coming

416
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 3: down the tier. They're dragging this person out by force.

417
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 3: They're beating him, and I guess I'm curious. I'm sort

418
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 3: of looking, you know. I guess maybe I should have

419
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 3: known better than to try to look. When one of

420
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 3: the gods saw me looking, he's like, what the fuck

421
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 3: are you looking at? He turns around and sprayed me

422
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 3: with a pepper spray of mace for about twenty thirty seconds.

423
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Speaker 2: Wow.

424
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Speaker 3: And the only thing I knew was my lungs were burning,

425
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,639
Speaker 3: my face was burning, and it was sort of like

426
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:13,640
Speaker 3: a welcomed angola. That was my first night in the penitentiary.

427
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: So and then things get even crazier. So you end

428
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,440
Speaker 1: up working on a chain gang.

429
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 2: Is that right?

430
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know that chain gang is a

431
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 3: little bit misleading because we're not actually linked by chains.

432
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 2: Right, But it's a term that applies.

433
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 3: To It's a group of inmates working under the supervision

434
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 3: of gun guards on horses in the swamps. It could

435
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 3: be swamps, it could be anywhere on the farm.

436
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: Here's a clip where Burl Caine, the warden, talks about

437
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 1: the infamous history of Louisiana State Penitentiary.

438
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:55,359
Speaker 6: The work in the farm is critical angela. That's what

439
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 6: it is. It's a plantation in prison. It was that

440
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 6: way throughout its entire history important that we have agriculture

441
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 6: here on the farm that provide work for the innate,

442
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 6: which you know is good for them because they have

443
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:08,919
Speaker 6: something to do to use after energy and so forth.

444
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:14,080
Speaker 3: It turned out that I was working in what they

445
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:17,119
Speaker 3: called camp a Line twenty one under one of the

446
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 3: most vicious inhuman farm bosses that Angola had at the time,

447
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 3: and I found it difficult at my age and my

448
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 3: physical condition to keep up with the average man who

449
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 3: was only in their early twenties and I'm thirty seven

450
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 3: thirty eight years old at this time in horrible shape.

451
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 3: But one of the things that this particular field foreman

452
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 3: used to enjoy doing to torment the people under his supervision.

453
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 3: He would put us, say on the levee cutting high

454
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:01,239
Speaker 3: grass with what they called ditch bank blade, which is

455
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 3: it's impossible to describe on air, but it's this huge,

456
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 3: heavy cutting blade. And what he would do is they

457
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:13,560
Speaker 3: might have been close to one hundred men in the line.

458
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 3: He would put us up on the levee and there

459
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 3: would be two inmates with a water bucket, and he'd

460
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 3: tell the people with the water bucket. I want y'all

461
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 3: to move about a mile down the road with the

462
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 3: gun guard supervising you, and he said, y'all keep moving

463
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 3: that water bucket and don't let anybody have water, because

464
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 3: it says until ten people pass out from the heat,

465
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 3: I'm not letting anybody drink water. And that was a

466
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 3: typical day working for this man mac Shaw, where he

467
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 3: would see people pass out fall out, as we'd say,

468
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 3: from heat stroke, heat exhaustion, from lack of water, and

469
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,959
Speaker 3: once a whatever number he arbitrarily determined he wanted to

470
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 3: pass out and be carried off in the back of

471
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 3: a truck for disciplinary purposes. Then he'd let everybody else

472
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 3: have a drink of water.

473
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 1: And then things got really crazy because at one point

474
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: you were singled out.

475
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 3: It was at more than one point, I mean, it

476
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 3: seemed it was something that happened day after day, every

477
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 3: time I'd go in the field. I never had the

478
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 3: distinction of being one of the people. I guess I

479
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 3: was fortunate enough that I could go without drinking water

480
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 3: longer than other people that I might not be one

481
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 3: of the first five to ten people to pass out

482
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 3: from heatstroke and lack of water. But I certainly wasn't

483
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 3: keeping up with the work quote according to this field form,

484
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 3: and he would just almost every day that I went

485
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 3: to work, he would write me up on a disciplinary report,

486
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 3: lock me up in administrative segregation to be disciplined by

487
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 3: the disciplinary court. They would hear my case and say

488
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 3: it would say something like I flatly refused to work. Well,

489
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 3: I never ever flatly refused to work. I simply worked

490
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 3: until I couldn't work anymore, or I worked at the

491
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 3: fastest pace I was capable of. But the field foreman

492
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 3: never wrote the truth on a disciplinary report, and the

493
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 3: disciplinary board that helped court, they didn't. They knew what

494
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 3: the truth was, but they would just continue to stack

495
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:40,760
Speaker 3: punishment on you, and I'd be sent back out to work.

496
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: It's it's just I don't I can't even I can't

497
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 1: find any words. The good news is you're a smart guy.

498
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 1: You're a guy of an educated guy, somebody who can

499
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: can really think for himself.

500
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 2: So you get to the point.

501
00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:59,000
Speaker 1: Where you realize, if you're going to get out, you're

502
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 1: going to have to be the one to do it.

503
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 2: Is that a fair statement?

504
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 3: That absolutely? And I would say that I worked as

505
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 3: a clerk in an air conditioned office in the print

506
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 3: shop silkscreen shop at Angola for a little bit over

507
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 3: a year, but I knew I my ultimate goal was

508
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 3: I want to get the hell out of prison. And

509
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 3: everybody that I associated with said, you know, you'd probably

510
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 3: be better off going to be what they call an

511
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 3: inmate council substitute or prison lawyer working in the law library,

512
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 3: and I finally decided I'd apply for that job. I

513
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 3: did end up with a job over there, and over

514
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 3: the next several years, I learned the law. I think

515
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 3: I became pretty proficient with it. And after I had

516
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 3: exhausted all of my appeals in state court, after I

517
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 3: had gone through hundreds of thousands of dollars on about

518
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 3: seven different lawyers who all promised to do something, but

519
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 3: no one followed through and did what I hired him

520
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 3: to do, I finally sat back, spent six months researching

521
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 3: and another two to three months writing my own federal

522
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 3: writ one hundred percent on my own or with having

523
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 3: other inmate counsels review it give me their critique. I

524
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 3: filed my rit a Habeas Corpus into the federal court

525
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 3: system on my own. I didn't know what my chances

526
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 3: were going to bed. I figured slim to none at best,

527
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 3: but I felt like, at this point in time, if

528
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 3: I'm denied, I'm going to be denied on my own terms,

529
00:33:50,560 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 3: and I'll have given it my best shot. Finally, one

530
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 3: day they call me for legal mail. So I get

531
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 3: up at like five o'clock in the morning, go eat breakfast.

532
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 3: I went to the window where they pass out the

533
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,480
Speaker 3: legal mail. They had me a little brown envelope and

534
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:25,359
Speaker 3: I was scared shitless to open it.

535
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:29,280
Speaker 1: I'm like, because if if it's if it's the wrong answer,

536
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:29,879
Speaker 1: you're done.

537
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 2: This is your last appeal, right.

538
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 3: It's the wrong answer. I had a plan to escape

539
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 3: from Angola, and my escape from Mangola was I had

540
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 3: enough drugs in my possession hidden that probably within twenty

541
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 3: four hours, I was gonna od and that's how I

542
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 3: was going to get out of prison. And that had

543
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 3: been something I had planned for months, anticipating a negative

544
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 3: response from the court.

545
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: So I'm getting the chills right now. So you've got

546
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 1: this envelope and it's gonna it's gonna basically tell you

547
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:01,399
Speaker 1: whether you're gonna will ever die. At this point, you've

548
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 1: been in prison for fourteen years, fourteen years. It's been

549
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: a long time, exactly. I'd put up with as much

550
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:11,279
Speaker 1: as I felt like I could live with. And I

551
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:15,720
Speaker 1: felt like my children were getting up in age, and

552
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:17,719
Speaker 1: as much as I love them, as much as I

553
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 1: felt that they loved me, they continue to visit me

554
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:24,319
Speaker 1: almost every opportunity that they got. I felt I was

555
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:29,320
Speaker 1: doing them a disservice by having them come to visit

556
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: me in prison, by having them try to explain to

557
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:38,919
Speaker 1: their friends in college, well, why can't you hang out

558
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: with us this weekend? Oh, because I'm going to the

559
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: penitentiary to see my dad. And I think I probably

560
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 1: was looking at it the wrong way, and I know

561
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 1: I would have heard them tremendously, but I felt like

562
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: the best thing for myself and for my children in

563
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 1: the long run.

564
00:35:57,400 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 3: Was to take my life.

565
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 2: Fortunately it to that.

566
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:04,240
Speaker 1: Because you're sitting here now, and so you've got this envelope,

567
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: what do you do?

568
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 2: Do you open it?

569
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 3: I went to the law library where I worked, and

570
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 3: I locked it in the bottom cabinet. I'm like, I'm

571
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 3: the only person here this early in the morning. I

572
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,399
Speaker 3: just need somebody else around me. When I opened this up,

573
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:25,760
Speaker 3: So about half hour forty five minutes later, a couple

574
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 3: of my close friends that work in the law library

575
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 3: lived around me. They came in and I told my

576
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 3: one friend, Mike Singletary, who was my closest friend in

577
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:40,279
Speaker 3: the law library at that time. I said, Mike, I

578
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 3: got my decision from the federal court. And he says, well,

579
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 3: what's it say? I said, I don't know, Mike, I

580
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 3: don't have the nerve to open it. And he says,

581
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 3: oh my god, he said, come on, give me that envelope.

582
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 3: I'll open it for you. So I said, yeah, but

583
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:56,959
Speaker 3: I said he took it out of my hands. After

584
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:59,399
Speaker 3: I got it out the cabinet, he opened it. I said,

585
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 3: now let me read that, Mike, don't so I took

586
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:06,160
Speaker 3: a couple of big, deep breaths uh. And I don't

587
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:08,720
Speaker 3: know how. My heart was probably beaten two hundred beats

588
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 3: a minute, and I was shaking, and nine is right now,

589
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 3: and I know the aser and I opened the UH

590
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:20,800
Speaker 3: writ to the last page, and all of a sudden,

591
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:25,279
Speaker 3: I just stopped shaking, and I guess sort of a

592
00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:28,920
Speaker 3: smile came over my face, and for the first time

593
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:34,320
Speaker 3: since my wife's funeral, I cried. I started crying almost

594
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:40,880
Speaker 3: uncontrollably when I read that the magistrate judge recommended that

595
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 3: my conviction be set aside and that I'll be you know, freed.

596
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 3: I just, against all odds, I went up against the

597
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:55,279
Speaker 3: most conservative federal magistrate in the Eastern District for the

598
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:59,000
Speaker 3: State of Louisiana, who, according to what I had been told,

599
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 3: had never before granted a writ filed by an inmate

600
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 3: on their room. Behalf.

601
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: That's a happy ending to an incredibly terrible saga. And

602
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: you're back and I've gotten to know you well. Doug

603
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: is now working closely with the Rising Foundation in New Orleans,

604
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: helping other exoneries to rebuild their lives on the outside,

605
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,799
Speaker 1: using the skills that he has to help them with

606
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 1: everything from you know, you name a job applications to

607
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:40,280
Speaker 1: tax problems to building their houses to you know, fixing things,

608
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 1: getting employment. He's he's become a tremendous advocate for not

609
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:51,879
Speaker 1: only the Innocence Project and innocence projects, although in your

610
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:56,800
Speaker 1: case you represented yourself, but really somebody who has devoted

611
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:01,839
Speaker 1: himself to helping others, which is quite an extraordinary thing.

612
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 1: It makes me really so proud to know you and

613
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:09,839
Speaker 1: to be a part of your life. It's important to

614
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: note in all of this that the compensation that you

615
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: were given ultimately by the state was paltry, to say

616
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: the least, right because people ask me all the time, well,

617
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:21,799
Speaker 1: these guys must get they must get millions of dollars

618
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 1: when they get out. I mean, after what you went

619
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 1: through fourteen years in Angola prison and all the stuff,

620
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: almost being beaten to death, all the other indignities that

621
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: you suffered, and the fact that you were so egregiously framed.

622
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 3: The compensation in the state of Louisiana allows for twenty

623
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars a year for a maximum of ten

624
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:49,840
Speaker 3: years of incarceration. It's doled out at twenty five thousand

625
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 3: dollars a year over ten years, which gives a person

626
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 3: barely enough to exist on if you have a very

627
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 3: modest lifestyle for ten years. But the other thing, I mean,

628
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:11,240
Speaker 3: in my case, it fell short one hundred and thirty

629
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 3: seven thousand dollars short of my actual expenses, so I

630
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 3: didn't even recoup what I spent.

631
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 2: Right, because you had actually spent the money on.

632
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:23,360
Speaker 3: Attorneys on my legal defense.

633
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,160
Speaker 1: You basically paid ten thousand dollars a year to be

634
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:29,439
Speaker 1: locked up for fourteen.

635
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 2: Years is what it comes down to.

636
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 3: That's about what it comes down to.

637
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: It's important to note that there are twenty states that

638
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: have no compensation statutes, and the ones that do have

639
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:40,279
Speaker 1: compensation statutes, some of them are even worse than Louisiana,

640
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: like Wisconsin.

641
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:44,440
Speaker 3: You know, people think that, oh, you were proven that

642
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:49,319
Speaker 3: you were wrongfully convicted, you must have gotten millions. Well no,

643
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:53,560
Speaker 3: I'm still struggle to this day. I was never able

644
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 3: to repay my children for selling their interest in their

645
00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 3: family homes so I could hire that lust attorney. And

646
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 3: it's just not right, not just for me, but for

647
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 3: all of the men in Louisiana and elsewhere too, and elsewhere.

648
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 1: According to the National Registry of his Honerations, there have

649
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 1: been forty six exonerations in Louisiana since nineteen eighty nine,

650
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 1: and a quarter them occurred in Jefferson County, the same

651
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: office that prosecuted you. The sad truth is that there's

652
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:26,440
Speaker 1: probably hundreds, if not thousands of other Doug deloss in

653
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:30,120
Speaker 1: Louisiana alone. It's certainly around the country, and I can

654
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 1: tell you that we won't stop until we exonerate as

655
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:36,120
Speaker 1: many of them as we possibly can.

656
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 2: People say to me, you know my work, I think

657
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 2: it's inspired.

658
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 1: They say, what that? But prosecutors they don't lie that.

659
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:50,360
Speaker 1: People don't understand like it's it's it's Unfortunately, it's common,

660
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:52,960
Speaker 1: which is why we asked Nina Morrison to join us

661
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:56,359
Speaker 1: in the studio today. Welcome to Ronful Conviction with Jason

662
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 1: Flommer's good.

663
00:41:56,960 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 2: To have you here. Thank you, good to be here.

664
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,120
Speaker 1: So Nina is the your staff attorney at the Innocence Project.

665
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 1: She litigates claims for access to post conviction DNA evidence

666
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 1: under both federal civil rights laws and state DNA testing statutes.

667
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 1: To date, Ms Morrison has served as lead or co

668
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:17,280
Speaker 1: counsel for more than twenty innocent prisoners who were freed

669
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 1: from prison or even death row based on DNA or

670
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 1: other newly discovered evidence. So, can you explain to us

671
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 1: what exactly is a Brady violation? We talk about it

672
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: a lot.

673
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:27,919
Speaker 2: On the show.

674
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, a Brady violation is where a prosecutor doesn't

675
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 4: give the defense evidence that either the prosecutor or the

676
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 4: police or some other agent of the state like a

677
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 4: crime lab has that is favorable to the defendant's case.

678
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:49,160
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's proof of their innocence. You know, another suspect

679
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:51,760
Speaker 4: who was seen in the area, somebody else who admitted

680
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 4: to the crime. Sometimes it's evidence that shows that a witness,

681
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 4: you know, who claimed to be an eyewitness, was you know,

682
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:01,799
Speaker 4: high out of their minds that night according to five

683
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:04,759
Speaker 4: other people, or couldn't have seen what they said they said.

684
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 4: There's a whole array of stuff. It's basically anything that

685
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:09,719
Speaker 4: helps the defense. And it's a strange system when you

686
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 4: think about it, because you know, prosecutors and defense layers

687
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:15,280
Speaker 4: go into court, they're fighting hard in these big murder

688
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 4: cases or rape cases or other hard fought criminal trials,

689
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 4: and the way the law is set up is the

690
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 4: prosecutor has to give the other side something voluntarily that

691
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 4: might make them lose, and we trust them in most

692
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 4: places to turn it over, so they say, I'm fulfilling

693
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 4: my Brady obligations, and there's no check on it until

694
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:37,360
Speaker 4: after the case is over, and sometimes not even then until.

695
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 2: It's literally too late.

696
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 1: And this leaves a very wide lane open for the

697
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:46,919
Speaker 1: bad actors in the system, the bad prosecutors to do

698
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 1: what they feel like on a given day, and to

699
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 1: really railroad people who are just regular people like you

700
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:57,400
Speaker 1: and I who get find themselves stuck in this nightmare.

701
00:43:57,440 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 1: People like Doug Delosa.

702
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 4: Yeah so, and they're even worse news in terms of

703
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 4: how it gets dealt with after the trial. Because if

704
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:07,800
Speaker 4: you discover that a prosecutor in your case withheld Brady

705
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 4: material something favorable to you, your conviction doesn't automatically get reversed.

706
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 4: You then, according to US Supreme Court case law, have

707
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:20,399
Speaker 4: to show an appeals court that the violation is what

708
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 4: the courts call material, which means it actually made a difference.

709
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,600
Speaker 4: So you basically have to come in after the fact

710
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 4: when a jury never heard this information, a witness was

711
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:31,839
Speaker 4: never cross examined on it, and say, you know, Judge,

712
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:34,600
Speaker 4: if I'd had this, I would have argued this. I

713
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,240
Speaker 4: would have said that the jury wouldn't have believed this person.

714
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:39,880
Speaker 4: And here's why you have to kind of have a

715
00:44:40,080 --> 00:44:43,360
Speaker 4: mental do over a hypothetical due over of the trial.

716
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 4: And if they say, eh, you know, it made a difference, maybe,

717
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 4: but we don't know, it might not necessarily have made

718
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 4: a difference in the outcome. So it's what's called harmless error.

719
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:55,319
Speaker 1: So, Nina, I wanted to ask you how common are

720
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 1: these Brady violations it you know, we.

721
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 4: Don't know because by definition, men of them are hidden.

722
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 4: We know that we have seen them in a very

723
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 4: significant proportion of our cases. You know, there's at least

724
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:10,879
Speaker 4: fifteen featured cases on the Innocence Project website just from

725
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 4: the last few years that involve serious Brady violations which

726
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 4: we uncover in the course of investigating a client's other

727
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 4: claim of innocence. And there is no scientific way to

728
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:24,799
Speaker 4: study them because by definition, there are things that haven't

729
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 4: been turned over. It's sort of like everyone we find

730
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 4: is in some ways by chance. You don't have a

731
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:32,160
Speaker 4: right to get a lot of files. After somebody has

732
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 4: been convicted. Things get destroyed. I wake up at nights

733
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:38,480
Speaker 4: sometimes worrying about you know, these days, when almost everything

734
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:40,799
Speaker 4: is electronic, we don't have the piece of paper in

735
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:42,640
Speaker 4: the file anymore the way we used to in the

736
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 4: cases from the eighties and early nineties. Now it's all

737
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:48,400
Speaker 4: in a memo on somebody's computer and they hit delete,

738
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 4: or that person leave the office and it's gone. It's

739
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:52,840
Speaker 4: in an email, it's in a voicemail, it's in a

740
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:53,960
Speaker 4: text from a witness.

741
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 1: It's you know, you know, it's really a level of

742
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:02,239
Speaker 1: evil that in this particular case, I don't know what

743
00:46:02,280 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 1: else to call it.

744
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:04,879
Speaker 2: The prosecutor is.

745
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:08,480
Speaker 4: And you know, I know, Barry check in one of

746
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 4: your other episodes when you had Barry Gibson was talking

747
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:13,960
Speaker 4: about this concept of noble cause corruption, which I think

748
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:15,879
Speaker 4: is a very real phenomenon. You know, I don't think

749
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:19,840
Speaker 4: even the prosecutors that we've caught red handed withholding evidence,

750
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 4: I think most, if not all of them honestly believed

751
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 4: that they were doing it for a higher purpose, which is,

752
00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 4: they had a killer sitting in the courtroom who was

753
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:32,799
Speaker 4: going to get away with murder if they didn't win

754
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:36,160
Speaker 4: their case, and so they convinced themselves that whatever they

755
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:39,400
Speaker 4: were holding back was not really proof of innocence. It

756
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:43,479
Speaker 4: was something the defense would use to create a smoke screen. Right.

757
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 2: But the law's the law.

758
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 4: You have a job as an officer of the court

759
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 4: to follow the law and turn it over. And now

760
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:53,480
Speaker 4: we know that many of those people were actually innocent,

761
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 4: So we see what the real harm is from that

762
00:46:57,080 --> 00:46:58,880
Speaker 4: skirting the ethical line.

763
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:05,240
Speaker 1: So bring this to the sort of the practical question

764
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 1: of what can be done.

765
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 4: We at the Innocence Project are working on a couple

766
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 4: of things to police things before trial happens. So one

767
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 4: of the things we are trying to do is get

768
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:20,040
Speaker 4: judges to take a more active role in ensuring that

769
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 4: Brady's guarantee is a real one by putting prosecutors on

770
00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 4: the record issuing court orders to say, I want you

771
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:31,840
Speaker 4: to check these five locations to see if there's anything

772
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:34,360
Speaker 4: favorable to the defense, and I'm going to have a

773
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:37,919
Speaker 4: conference a month before the trial to see how it's going.

774
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 4: What have you turned over, what are you looking for?

775
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 4: And at that point the defense lawyer will have an

776
00:47:42,239 --> 00:47:45,280
Speaker 4: opportunity to speak up and say, I haven't gotten anything

777
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 4: on the witness statements. I don't know who what these

778
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:50,720
Speaker 4: witness statements are. And our theory is, you know, for example,

779
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,319
Speaker 4: two black men came in and did this crime. Are

780
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:57,280
Speaker 4: there any reports of suspicious African Americans in the area,

781
00:47:57,360 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 4: whether you think they did it or not? You know,

782
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:01,719
Speaker 4: is there anything we should invest to gate? And the

783
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:04,240
Speaker 4: reason why you want to have the judges be policing

784
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 4: it is that if you lie to a judge, you

785
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 4: can get charged with contemptive court and lose your law

786
00:48:09,680 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 4: license and even go to jail. And on the back end,

787
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 4: we need to take accountability seriously, you know, we need

788
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 4: to make sure that the state bars have a culture

789
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 4: where they can go after just as they would a

790
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 4: lawyer who doesn't give a client all their money back

791
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 4: or didn't do the job they were hired to do

792
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:32,880
Speaker 4: in a trust, some estates case or a civil case,

793
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:35,839
Speaker 4: that they will go after the prosecutors who break the law,

794
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 4: even if it's not politically easy to do. And then lastly,

795
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:42,920
Speaker 4: you know, it is very hard, as you know, and

796
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:45,399
Speaker 4: you've talked about on your show, for prosecutors to ever

797
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 4: be sued civilly and even for states or counties to

798
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:55,480
Speaker 4: be held liable for the misconduct of prosecutors. Prosecutors are

799
00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:58,839
Speaker 4: what's called immune from suit in all but a few

800
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 4: very rare cases. And so if a prosecutor knows of

801
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 4: some favorable evidence and doesn't turn it over, the court

802
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:07,799
Speaker 4: Supreme Court has said, well, you can go after them

803
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:10,759
Speaker 4: on bar discipline, or you can maybe criminally prosecute them.

804
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 4: Talk about Fox and Penhouse, right, but you can't see

805
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 4: them unless there's a pattern and practice of violations, and

806
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 4: those are very hard to prove, and.

807
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: Criminal prosecutions of prosecutors are extremely difficult, not least it,

808
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 1: which was because prosecutors generally don't like prosecuting prosecutors.

809
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:30,719
Speaker 4: Correct, and they will air I mean, you know, they

810
00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 4: will give every benefit of the doubt. Oh they missed it,

811
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 4: they were busy, they thought they turned it over, they

812
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 4: put it in the wrong notebook. You know, yes they did.

813
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:40,480
Speaker 4: The defense layer says they didn't have it, but we

814
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 4: think they did. I mean, you know, and look, our

815
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 4: clients should have been so lucky to get the benefit

816
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:47,240
Speaker 4: of every doubt when they were being accused of a crime.

817
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on Wrongful Conviction with

818
00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:53,320
Speaker 1: Jason Flom And it was great.

819
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 2: It's great to have you here.

820
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 4: Thanks so much.

821
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 2: It's great to be here.

822
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:04,359
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you

823
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:06,120
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.

824
00:50:05,560 --> 00:50:06,480
Speaker 2: It really helps.

825
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and

826
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very

827
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 1: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go

828
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 1: to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and

829
00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:22,800
Speaker 1: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor

830
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 1: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is

831
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure

832
00:50:29,120 --> 00:50:32,239
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on

833
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:33,200
Speaker 1: Facebook at.

834
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:34,640
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction podcast.

835
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava

836
00:50:38,080 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one